


Touching Swords

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Curiosity, Family, Father and Son, Gen, Lies, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 07:17:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16739536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: A young Gary asks to touch his father's sword.





	Touching Swords

**Author's Note:**

> Somewhat of a sequel to "Counting Fingers" but written to be enjoyed independently.

Touching Swords

“May I touch your sword?” Gary’s hands tugged insistently at Gareth’s scabbard as they had every morning for a week. Instead of offering a morning greeting, Gary would attack his father’s ankles and beg to touch his sword. Seven was apparently an age of unrelenting exploration as six had been a stage of unabated trouble. 

Sighing in surrender to his son’s persistence, Gareth unsheathed his sword and placed the hilt in Gary’s palm, curling the lad’s hand so he held it firmly, and cautioning with a stern glance, “Be careful. You don’t want to cut off your fingers.” 

“You cut off a finger, Father.” Gary’s gaze flicked speculatively over the gaping hole where Gareth’s finger had once been as the boy finally found the courage to unleash the curious question Gareth had seen flare in his eyes a hundred times. “Were you careless touching your father’s sword?” 

“No.” Brisk as an autumn breeze, Gareth gave the lie he had told to all his pages, ignoring the cutting feeling he experienced whenever his missing finger was called into focus. A finger, he thought, was such a minor detail until you lost it. Then it became a chasm that could never be filled, a question that could never be answered without inviting pity or contempt unless an impressive myth, a protective shell, were created around it to guard it from prodding and probing. “I lost my finger in the Chamber of the Ordeal, son.” 

“You did?” Gary’s eyes were so wide that Gareth feared he would drop the sword, chopping off his own toe. 

“Yes.” Gareth took advantage of his son’s distraction to pry the lad’s slack fingers from his sword hilt and return the blade to the scabbard that swung from his belt. “That’s why you must train hard to avoid suffering a similar fate.” 

“Yes, Father.” For once seeming suitably subdued, Gary nodded and subsided into a rare silence.


End file.
